In recent years, the development of new and powerful computing platforms has enabled more powerful computer simulations and computer games to be developed which enable users to engage a wide variety of simulated activities. These computing platforms have also begun to incorporate various forms of artificial intelligence that can enhance a user's experience in an interactive computer environment. Among the range of applications provided by advanced computing platforms are those that include the use of one or more automated personas and intelligent agents. These personas or agents have come to be referred to in certain instances as “avatars” because they may be portrayed in interactive environments with various human-like features.
Research directed to the control and autonomous of operation of intelligent agents in an interactive environment has produced mixed results. A significant degree of research work has been performed to thoroughly understand the mechanics of human motion that can be rendered in a computer generated environment, but such research has provided little assistance in defining the features, methods or techniques to be used to enable these intelligent persona to effectively operate autonomously within an interactive environment regardless of a human user's direct control of the personas. Indeed, research into the most pioneering forms of artificial reasoning is still very much in a nascent stage and little is understood about how to effectively capture, analyze, build associative networks based on a user's past and present behaviors, and apply stored knowledge that is organized in the form of content and related meta-data associative networks to enable the rapid organization, searching and application of such knowledge to the real-time autonomous operation of intelligent personas in an interactive environment.
Thus, there is a current and pressing need for systems and methods that can provide continuous monitoring of events, actively monitor user responses to those events, and apply controlled actions to intelligent persona in a variety of interactive environments regardless of a user's direct involvement in controlling such persona in these environments.